arms of love
Photo by David Brooke Martin
They were the sweetest words I'd ever heard
My heart could barely take it in
Like water offered to the lips
Of a tired and thirsty man
'cause it's a tangled web of woven
I don't know all the reasons
But it amazes me to wake up
To your mercy every morning
So I'm standing here spinning around
In the fields of freedom
And I'm still alive and reaching out
And I can feel the healing
'cause you say
Come on out come on out
Come on out come on out
Out in the open
Come on out come on out
Come on out come on out
Into the light
There is no jury
There is no judge
Ready and waiting
Are the steady arms of love
I absolutely love the song Out in the Open, by Amy Grant. I cannot tell you the number of times I have listened to it! I have cried as I listened to it. I have played it and spun around in circles, imagining myself a little girl, twirling in a field of flowers while my father watched with joy, and I felt safe in my daddy’s love and care.
Other times I would listen, and I envisioned myself, arms wide open running to The Father seeking the shelter of his arms, needing the warmth of his gentle embrace, and seeking his peace, the peace that passes all understanding. The peace that only comes from God and can be found in his arms of love.
photo by Jackson david
Are you tired and weary? Is your heart heavy, burdened with some sort of shame or guilt? Do you wish you could just lift that heavy yoke from your shoulders and feel some relief from the weight of it all? Do you fear you have woven a web so tight it could never be untangled?
If so, friend, do I have words of comfort for you today.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30 NIV).
We all experience weariness from time to time and can be saddled with a variety of burdens. This scripture can apply to many facets of life, not simply physical weariness. Jesus knew this life was tough, after all, he walked this earth. He experienced what we experience. He is not promising a life without problems or pain, but for those of us who have tried to be superheroes and carry our own burdens and earn our own salvation, those words are water to our thirsty souls.
photo by Malachi Cowie @malachieyetoeye
Maybe you are ready to check out right now and not read any further. You are certain this message doesn’t apply to you. You don’t harbor shame or guilt, nor are you weary or burdened. That might very well be true. To you I say, good for you! That is truly a wonderful thing. Keep it up! But, for most of us, to a certain degree, we deal with feelings of shame and guilt, and those feelings can cause a deep sense of weariness and fatigue.
Sometimes we might not even be aware that shame or guilt is that “thing,” or those thoughts or feelings that are keeping us apart from others. Sometimes it’s buried so deep we don’t know why we feel weary or heavy laden. We blame other factors for creating the barrier that prevents intimacy with others, and especially with God.
The past two weekends I have had the blessing of being with three of our four grandbabies. As I would hold out my hands and call for them to come into the safety of my arms, I envisioned this being similar to how Jesus calls out to us. How he pleads for us to come into his arms for comfort.
I love how The Message Bible words it, “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly” (Matthew 11:28-30, MSG).
In my humble opinion, the Matthew scripture quoted above is our rescue from the power of guilt and shame. This scripture is an invitation from the one and only, Jesus. Like a parent or grandparent to a child, only better, it’s Jesus squatting down and holding out his arms to us saying, come on, it’s O.K., you are safe with me, come on out. Come out of the darkness and into the light. You can trust me, lay all your shame, your worries, and strife right here at my feet.
I long to give you rest. I want you to trust me with your burdens. I know this life on this earth is difficult. I know this life is hard. I can give you freedom from the bondage of guilt and shame. I’ve already done the hard part. It was finished at the cross.
Last week I wrote about #thegoodstuff, and, tied it to a request I had gotten to write about “humility, look what God did when I waited on him.” This week I am addressing a frequently requested topic, and a topic that showed up on my recent survey, the topic of shame. More specifically, how does shame effect our view of ourselves and of God?
photo by Larm Rmah @larm
While this post focuses mostly on shame, I think it’s important to mention that I don’t think we can talk about shame without also mentioning guilt because they are closely tied together, but there is an important difference between the two.
Guilt is about activity and is less damaging, doesn’t seem to run as deep, and is less personal than shame. Shame is about identity. BUT…it’s important to remember, neither guilt nor shame are from God.
“Guilt tells you, “That thing you did was wrong.” Shame tells you, “Because you did that thing, you’re a bad person.” webmd
Shame has a detrimental and profound impact on how we view ourselves and how we view God. How do I know this? Because I have lived in that miserable space of shame for entirely too much of my life. By the grace of God and his mercy I am out of that deep bondage, but it wasn’t without a fight, nor is it easily a place to stay out of without regularly being in the word and remaining close to God.
Author and shame researcher, Brené Brown defines shame, “as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging—something we've experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.”
Our enemy knows that shame and guilt will create a chasm between us and Jesus, and you can bank on him wanting nothing more than to keep us buried in it all. If we are shame filled we feel unworthy, unqualified, dirty, often less than, and nothing will keep us farther from a Holy God than feelings like that!
photo by Noah Silliman @noahsilliman
Neuroscience tells us that our brain reacts to shame the same as it does when we face danger. Shame activates our sympathetic nervous system kicking us into flight/fight/freeze response mode.
The flight mode triggers the feeling of needing to disappear. Therefore we will most often isolate ourselves from people we care about, but especially from God who we envision is sitting on his throne looking down his nose in disappointment, just waiting to zap us.
The fight response in turn triggers aggressive verbal or physical behavior towards the person who we believe caused us to feel ashamed. Again, likely resulting in alienation because people don’t want to be around a loaded gun, so to speak.
Finally, the freeze response messes with our ability to think clearly and leads us to believe we are stuck in situations we feel powerless in because something is wrong with us. We might believe we deserve what is happening because it’s our fault we are in a particular situation.
Shame has been closely linked to all forms of depression, eating disorders, PTSD, feelings of hopelessness, paranoia, codependency, and many other toxic behaviors.
Shame focuses on failure.
Shame effects our self-esteem.
Shame separates us from our potential.
Shame is often perpetuated by our inability to forgive, whether it’s others or ourselves.
So, getting back to the question I was asked to write about, how does shame effect our view of ourselves and of God? When we are trapped in shame we feel worthless, we pull away from people who love us, we isolate ourselves which only perpetuates our depression, self-loathing, and keeps us in a state of darkness.
BUT, where shame really traps us and can do the most damage is where shame intersects with our ability or inability to forgive, especially if we need to forgive ourselves. Without self-forgiveness, often our shame will lead us to do something we feel even more shame for doing. Shame builds on shame, meaning, sometimes we think we are a lost cause, so we continue self-destructive behaviors which leads us into a deeper sense of shame.
photo by ametlene Reskp @reskp
Forgiveness or unforgiveness plays a huge part in shame and its impact on our view of ourselves and our view of God. Unforgiveness affects our spirit and our soul and hinders our spiritual growth.
Some of the first steps to freedom from shame is knowing the following…
1. God forgives us first. Psalm 103:10-11 NIV
"He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him."
2. If others can forgive us, shouldn’t we forgive ourselves? Ephesians 4:31-32 ESV
"Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you."
Contemporary Christian singer Amy Grant sums it up well when being interviewed back in 2002 about her very public divorce where she was relentlessly shamed by evangelicals and the Christian media. The interviewer told her the magazine would not publish the interview if she did not give a public apology. Grant responded by saying…
“Do I feel sorry because my life hasn’t turned out like I thought it would,” she replied, “and because of that, I have fans that feel disappointed or betrayed? Sure. I never make a decision without considering how it will affect the people in my life. Sometimes I do that to a fault.”
She thought some more, and added: “The hardest part for me, Matthew, was forgiving myself. But once you do, you can’t keep going back. You accept the grace and live.”
Romans 8:1-2 NLT says, “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. For the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you through Christ Jesus from the power of sin that leads to death.”
Jesus wants us to be free of shame. He frees us from shame so we can be all he created us to be. He forgives us first, and then we must forgive ourselves. We have to choose to walk in that freedom on a moment-by-moment basis.
“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” John 8:36 NIV .
For the sake of never making waves I
Kept my secrets to myself
And no one ever really knew the
Darker shadows of my heart
But I will be a witness
That there's nothing in me dark enough
The power of forgiveness
Cannot rescue from the deep
So I'm standing here spinning around
In the fields of freedom
And I'm still alive and reaching out
And I can feel the healing
Disclaimer:
This is a very high-level overview of the effects of shame on us. Shame is a deeply complicated issue that can be a learned behavior in response to many things we have experienced. So, as always, I want to say, I am not an expert on this subject and if you believe you have deeply embedded issues with shame, I encourage you to please get help. You do not have to live your life in that place!
Thanks to neuroplasticity, you can train your brain to learn new ways of thinking and behaving. It’s a process, but there is hope and there can be healing.
While shame clearly has a more negative impact on us overall, there is a positive aspect of shame in that it can serve to open our eyes to identify and take accountability for our actions that might have caused harm in a relationship. Sometimes when others see we are experiencing feelings of shame, they let their defenses down and sometimes healing conversations can then take place.
Resources referenced and or paraphrased:
the-scientific-underpinnings-and-impacts-of-shame
from-shame-to-freedom-is-it-possible
